Mochi: New Year’s Silent Killer

On Saturday, a 66-year-old woman on the outskirts of Tokyo fell victim to a deadly seasonal hazard that lands dozens in the emergency room every year on January 1: sticky rice cakes.

Sticky rice cakes, or mochi, as the Japanese call them, are made by pounding the life out of glutinous rice and are a staple during the Japanese new year feast. The average Japanese consumes about 1 kg of mochi annually, most of which is eaten during the first week of new year, according to the mochi trade association website.

Mochi served in a dish known as zoni makes it stickier and more deathly.

While harmless to most, mochi claims a handful of lives every year by getting lodged in the throats and blocking the airways of elderly eaters whose mastication abilities and saliva secretion may be weakened by age. According to the Tokyo Fire Department, this traditional food sends over 100 patients to the hospital every year in Tokyo alone—mostly aged 60 and over— half of which end up in serious condition or worse. Between 2006 and 2009, 18 people died from mochi suffocation in Tokyo, making it the leading food item to cause suffocation.

While these tragic yet preventable deaths are largely accepted as part of the New Year’s landscape, some are beginning to question the preferential treatment given to mochi. In 2008, fruit jelly with konjac yam powder was vilified after 22 people were reported to have suffocated from it over the span of 13 years. After much investigation involving doctors, dentists and engineers, the Japanese government decided last month that the shape and size of the fruit jelly should be altered. That the Food Safety Commission found mochi to be about 50 times more dangerous than konjac jelly seemed to have gone ignored.

With the reports of this year’s mochi death toll mounting, Japanese have bloggers are wondering out loud about the unfairness of mochi’s untouchable status. “The only reason why mochi isn’t regulated is because it’s a traditional food item,” says one blogger. “Is it just easier to pick on a limited number of konjac jelly makers, compared to countless mochi producers?” If bloggers get their way, Prime Minister Naoto Kan may have one more sticky issue on his new year’s plate.